


Oh, Do Not Ask, "What Is It?"

by barelyaconcept, CatOnThePianoStrings (orphan_account)



Series: Squeezed the Universe Into a Ball [2]
Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies)
Genre: Gen, maybe kinda angsty, not super-slashy, third-party contemplation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-14
Updated: 2015-12-14
Packaged: 2018-05-06 17:25:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 263
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5425538
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/barelyaconcept/pseuds/barelyaconcept, https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/CatOnThePianoStrings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Groot considers the difference between Rocket now and Rocket then.</p><p>Only tagged R/P because it's focused on their relationship and how Groot feels about it.  Also, it's in an R/P-ish 'verse, sooo.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Oh, Do Not Ask, "What Is It?"

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not super-satisfied with this, but oh well. Also, this is not meant to be a representation or critique of asexual persons, just my interpretation of this incarnation of Groot.
> 
> And I'm avoiding HOAF right now because finals and I just really don't have the emotional wherewithal for actual plot right now. Sorry.
> 
> This falls... somewhere after the other work in this series. Title is, again, from "Prufrock."

Groot’s always known that his friend needs more protection that he can give him.

Well, not _protection_ , per se, but something kind of vague and tactile and if Groot could have figured out how to replicate it before they met the rest of the Guardians, he would have. He’s always petted Rocket, though he’s been careful to make a distinction between the comfort animals the people from some planets keep and the way Groot curls a branch around Rocket every now and then.

It helped, he knows. It helped some, and he hasn’t stopped offering that, gently running a vine across the top of Rocket’s head when they’re close enough, but the Star Lord is warm and small in ways that Groot is not, can never be, and the Star Lord can offer the kind of physical connection that simply does not come naturally to the Groot.

He does not, of course, begrudge them that, doe not wish he could cur into Rocket’s bed and hold him close after a mission, because there is a sexual element to their bond that Groot finds discomfiting, but that does not stop him from regretting the years that Rocket spent without the comfort that Quill brings him. He wishes, in flights of fancy that he generally avoids, that he could have found this for Rocket sooner, helped him more.

He wishes that he could have been what his best friend needed, but when he returns to reality and reason, Rocket is healthy and happy, wrapped up in the arms of the man who loves him most.


End file.
